Bird, blossom and woman full sleeve

The cherry on the towpath at Hythe Lock came out the same morning we lost our second mooring line, so you'll forgive me for being slow with the pen. Ada has been steering while I wrestled the bow rope, and she keeps insisting the chickadees on the bough are laughing at us. They are only a pair of small grey-and-black birds, hopping from one pink spray to the next as if they had paid for the seat.

We're carrying bricks for the new bakery at Wellingborough, nine tons in the hold and a stove that smokes whenever the wind comes from the south. The water has gone that clean blue you only get in April, a sky so bright the clouds look pinned to it. Every lock keeper we pass asks after the purple flowers climbing the hedge at Thrapston, and I tell them they are the hardest thing in the world to paint, and they nod as though they know.

Ada has been quiet since Thursday. She wants to know whether the roses by your back door will flower before we're next through, and I told her they will if you talk to them, which you always did. She drew a woman with blossom in her hair on the back of a ticket, and I didn't have the heart to tell her the cherry trees won't last the week.

We moor at Oundle on Sunday. Post your answer there, care of the lock office, and I'll collect it when the bread is delivered.

Love, Tom